Advance Wars: Dark Conflict ^{(Nintendo DS)}

Genre: Turn-Based Strategy Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Intelligent Systems Players: 1-4

By RyanD (13th May 2008)

One of the best strategy titles on the market comes packaged with some serious Japan Factor weirdness.

Here in The West most of us see the Japanese influence in gaming in one of two ways: we either love it or loathe it. Rarely could any of us claim to fully understand it. If you’re one of those in the Loathe It crowd you may want to give this one a miss, for while Advance Wars really is one of the best of its kind, the Japan Factor is pretty thick on the ground. Fortunately, for me, I love the Japan Factor, and if you’re likewise inclined I’m sure you’ll have as much fun with this game as I’ve had.

Like most great Anime titles, Advance Wars: Dark Conflict is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and actually begins with the all-but-destruction of the world. Fans of the series will notice a distinct contrast to the ‘war is colourful and fun!’ ethos of its predecessors; this is a much greyer, and a much more sombre affair. The story, such that it is, focuses on the remaining fragments of human kind, and their struggle to refrain from continuing to bomb the living crap out of each other. Needless to say, and fortunately for us: the Players, they don’t do a very good job of it.

This new, darker setting paves the way for a veritable grab-bag of Anime staples, some (and by no means all) of which include:

• An unquenchably enthusiastic, perennially pre-pubescent, wide-eyed and idealistic lady-boy hero, who falls just to the Glam side of Emo.
• A mutated virus that turns people into tentacular, beflowered plant-creatures.
• The archetypical irradiated-and-fundamentally-religious Cult Of The Damned.
• The archetypical megalomaniacal, sociopathic, morally bankrupt Evil Scientist. Who by some weird twist of fate seems, inexplicably, to be NOT half-robot.
• Haircuts that defy the laws of physics.
• The girl-with-green-hair-and-eyes-like-dinner-plates-who-might-be-an-android-with-amnesia and an unexplained encyclopaedic knowledge of modern weaponry.
• Enough drawn out emotional monologues and moral agonising to make even Solid Snake consider reaching for the Skip button.

Yes, if you like That Japan Feeling, there’s plenty to be had here. Genuine nerds will note that the US release of Dark Conflict (re-titled Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin for reasons unknown) has a completely independent English translation to the Euro/Australian release, so you could conceivably play through this silly story in two distinctly different kinds of silly English.

If you don’t like That Japan Feeling, you probably won’t last five minutes. That would be a shame though, because this is one of the most beautifully balanced and challenging games on the market, on any console, let alone on the DS, which, I might add, seems to be positively made for this kind of game.

The Advance Wars gameplay formula (apart from a few story-driven mini-missions) is essentially the same as many other Turn-Based Strategy games. The opponents each have a home-base and the ability to produce various units, the goal of which is to capture cities (which earn you money) and blow the hell out of opposing units. One side is declared the winner when either their opponent’s home-base is captured, or all of their units are destroyed. Sounds simple, right? It’s not.

The units available in Advance Wars: Dark Conflict include infantry, tanks, motorbikes, helicopters, APCs, rocket-launchers, anti-aircraft guns, boats, jets and submarines (I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few here), all of which have certain strengths and weaknesses against various other units, varying levels of mobility and visibility, as well as varying amounts of fuel and ammo. The terrain types include deserts, roads, mountains, rivers, ocean and forests, all of which effect the mobility and effectiveness of your units. Couple this with the unique power-ups attributed to each of the selectable Commanding Officers, as well as the varying weather conditions, times of day and Fog Of War, and the gameplay options, strategy-wise, become virtually endless.

If this all sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t worry. One of the more beautifully crafted parts of Advance Wars: Dark Conflict’s design is the way in which tutorial elements are woven seamlessly into the first ten-or-so missions, so that without any particularly noticeable jump in difficulty, the gameplay morphs from toy-soldiers-in-the-sandpit into some kind of brain-snapping multi-tiered explosive mega-chess.

Fans of the last Advance Wars game: Advance Wars: Dual Strike will notice that the complexity has actually dropped somewhat, with only one army to control at a time, and no more crazy dual-CO powers to ruin everything in the blink of an eye. Dark Conflict is a much more streamlined experience, and if anything it’s even harder than before. The A.I. can only be described as utterly malevolent, if you're the kind of gamer who succeeds by finding A.I. exploits then I'm afraid you are quite out of luck here. Battles can last literally hours, most of that time being spent furiously thinking. Believe me, you'll be glad this game isn't a Real-Time Strategy. One false move can set your campaign back enormously, on more than one occasion I’ve found the battery life of the DS to be a genuine factor in my strategic decisions.

Considering that, on top of the already extensive story-mode, there are 150 extra maps (no, that is not a typo) included with the game, a full suite of map-creation tools and a robust multiplayer mode with online support (a quick look at www.advancewarsnet.com confirms that there are currently 7030 user-created maps), it’s obvious that you’re getting an awful lot of bang for your buck with this game.

One does get the impression, playing Advance Wars: Dark Conflict, that your mind is being gently and steadily re-wired, into an insidious tactical machine. I for one feel that, in the inevitable event of all-out global war, I’ll be a little better prepared, tactically at least. And we’ll definitely want the Japanese on our side, even if the haircuts are ridiculous.